So, has anybody else picked up this game?
I got around to playing it this weekend, and while I didn't get as much time with it as I'd have liked, I still managed to complete a casual run of the main story mode. I haven't yet touched the mission and bingo modes, so there's a lot that I can't comment on.
Thoughts:
Monsters: There are some real gems here as far as boss monsters go. I loved the bat thing and the final boss (which is incredibly weird by the way). You see some cool variations on pre-existing enemies, like the Shaggy Long Legs and the ant-eater-bulborb-thing. On the whole though, regular enemies were mostly repeated from the previous Pikmin games, which was a big disappointment to me. A lot of the newer monsters were really fun, and I'd have loved to have seen more of them rather than staples of the series like Bulborbs, Fiery Blowhogs and Wollywfrogs. Compared to Pikmin 2's ridiculously expansive monster catalogue, Pikmin 3 felt lacking. Maybe there's a lot more creatures out there and I just didn't have time to find them all.
By the way, I didn't see the return of the Piklopedia, easily one of my favourite features of Pikmin 2! What a shame!
Pikmin: Oh my GOD the new additions are the best. Rock Pikmin are hilarious. The way they move, the way they attack, the satisfying little "thunk!" sound they make whenever you lob them at an enemy, just ahhhh so cute. And flying Pikmin are really useful too. They can carry things across obstacles, and fly over water, but are never overpowered. These two strike a really nice balance with the other Pikmin, unlike the Whites and Purples of Pikmin 2 which were massively superior to the RBY Pikmin. By the way, Purple and White Pikmin only feature in challenge mode to my knowledge, they're absent from the main campaign. Which is understandable, as having seven types of Pikmin under your command would get too hairy for its own good.
Collectibles: In Pikmin 3, you almost exclusively collect fruit. I don't know why, but this just... doesn't feel as rewarding. Maybe it's because the fruit archetypes are all pretty predictable, so I know that at some point in the game I'll be finding a melon, or a lemon. Compare that to Pikmin 1, where you were collecting rocket parts, or Pikmin 2, where it was all just junk but literally anything could be up for grabs (remember the baby doll head?). Pikmin 3's collectibles just aren't as rewarding, never mind the fact that you could find a lot of the same fruit in Pikmin 2, and Pikmin 3 even borrows their nicknames (like Citrus Lump and Sunseed berry). Why did it have to be just fruit? Nintendo could have easily expanded the food selection to make things way more interesting, what a wasted opportunity.
Controls: Pikmin 3 introduces a lot of changes to how you control your army. You can now lock onto enemies, and can command your Pikmin to swarm the locked-on enemy all at once. There is also a dodge command, which comes in handy in a couple of places. While these additions are pretty interesting, they are held back by awkward button placement on the Wii U pad (I didn't use any other controllers). You cannot simultaneously move Pikmin and dodge at the same time because both require the same thumb. The button used for swarming is also the same button used for dismissing, meaning if you try and charge something but find you're not actually locked onto the enemy, there is a huge punishment. And sometimes, the lock-on can be pretty awkward (like that one boss fight with the queen bee thing). The whistle felt a bit unresponsive sometimes, I don't know why. On occasion it felt like I whistled at some Pikmin up to three times before they responded. Maybe they kept getting stuck in long animation cycles before being able to respond.
One thing I don't see mention of when people review this game is the lack of ability to steer your army, like you could in Pikmin 1 and 2 with the c-stick. Did I just miss this?
Difficulty: For the record, I like my games to be difficult, but I appreciate that Nintendo is ultimately a company that wants to make its games accessible to as wide of an audience as possible. This is especially true of the Pikmin franchise, where the main complaint revolves around difficulty (which I find dumb, but so be it). So I don't take issue with games being easy, so long as they are also enjoyable. For the most part, Pikmin 3 is a pretty easy going title. You are never going to run out of fruit juice, and mass deaths of Pikmin never seem to happen unless you experience a huge blip in the controls.
There are a couple of instances though where the game tries so hard to be user friendly that you can only shake your head in disbelief, though. I'm talking about those little hint boxes that spew out such words of wisdom like "Blue Pikmin don't drown in water!" and "Rock Pikmin hurt when thrown!". It's really not needed because the game already does a fine job establishing these facts during its own progression (like the fact that you find blue Pikmin already in the water). And these hints are also given to you on each loading screen, on journal entries, during character dialogue... c'mon man. It doesn't interfere with the game but... c'mon man.
Puzzles: As you might have guessed, nothing in Pikmin 3 stretches the imagine too far, but there are some pretty neat obstacles that stand in your way. Flying Pikmin seem to get some of the more interesting puzzles, like lifting fences up from the ground and moving objects to form bridges. I kinda felt like the RBY core missed out on some puzzles, and seemed mostly reserved for breaking down walls guarded by their elemental type (underwater walls and electric fences). My main criticism is that there is a lot of building bridges with broken pottery and it felt like a third of my time playing levels revolved around this in one way or another, which is pretty ridiculous.
Length: I completed the main story in about 8 hours, but this wasn't a 100% run, and I was also taking turns with my brother so probably would have got that done a bit quicker had I been on my own (it's just easier to focus when I play solo). To be honest I had no desire to 100% it because the collectibles, fruit, are pretty boring. Unlike in Pikmin 2, there are no underground caves that greatly expand the length of the game with their sheer volume of collectibles and difficulty. Pikmin 3 feels more like Pikmin 1: A short game, but it's designed to be replayed, with the sub-goal of setting high scores and being as efficient as possible. That's fine by me as I'm a fan of short-n-sweet games, especially as there's the mission mode to keep you busy.
Summary: It's a good game, but there are lots of little things holding it back from being a great game. And I hope I'm not being a typical whiny gamer who finds a flaw in everything put in front of him.
I got around to playing it this weekend, and while I didn't get as much time with it as I'd have liked, I still managed to complete a casual run of the main story mode. I haven't yet touched the mission and bingo modes, so there's a lot that I can't comment on.
Thoughts:
Monsters: There are some real gems here as far as boss monsters go. I loved the bat thing and the final boss (which is incredibly weird by the way). You see some cool variations on pre-existing enemies, like the Shaggy Long Legs and the ant-eater-bulborb-thing. On the whole though, regular enemies were mostly repeated from the previous Pikmin games, which was a big disappointment to me. A lot of the newer monsters were really fun, and I'd have loved to have seen more of them rather than staples of the series like Bulborbs, Fiery Blowhogs and Wolly
By the way, I didn't see the return of the Piklopedia, easily one of my favourite features of Pikmin 2! What a shame!
Pikmin: Oh my GOD the new additions are the best. Rock Pikmin are hilarious. The way they move, the way they attack, the satisfying little "thunk!" sound they make whenever you lob them at an enemy, just ahhhh so cute. And flying Pikmin are really useful too. They can carry things across obstacles, and fly over water, but are never overpowered. These two strike a really nice balance with the other Pikmin, unlike the Whites and Purples of Pikmin 2 which were massively superior to the RBY Pikmin. By the way, Purple and White Pikmin only feature in challenge mode to my knowledge, they're absent from the main campaign. Which is understandable, as having seven types of Pikmin under your command would get too hairy for its own good.
Collectibles: In Pikmin 3, you almost exclusively collect fruit. I don't know why, but this just... doesn't feel as rewarding. Maybe it's because the fruit archetypes are all pretty predictable, so I know that at some point in the game I'll be finding a melon, or a lemon. Compare that to Pikmin 1, where you were collecting rocket parts, or Pikmin 2, where it was all just junk but literally anything could be up for grabs (remember the baby doll head?). Pikmin 3's collectibles just aren't as rewarding, never mind the fact that you could find a lot of the same fruit in Pikmin 2, and Pikmin 3 even borrows their nicknames (like Citrus Lump and Sunseed berry). Why did it have to be just fruit? Nintendo could have easily expanded the food selection to make things way more interesting, what a wasted opportunity.
Controls: Pikmin 3 introduces a lot of changes to how you control your army. You can now lock onto enemies, and can command your Pikmin to swarm the locked-on enemy all at once. There is also a dodge command, which comes in handy in a couple of places. While these additions are pretty interesting, they are held back by awkward button placement on the Wii U pad (I didn't use any other controllers). You cannot simultaneously move Pikmin and dodge at the same time because both require the same thumb. The button used for swarming is also the same button used for dismissing, meaning if you try and charge something but find you're not actually locked onto the enemy, there is a huge punishment. And sometimes, the lock-on can be pretty awkward (like that one boss fight with the queen bee thing). The whistle felt a bit unresponsive sometimes, I don't know why. On occasion it felt like I whistled at some Pikmin up to three times before they responded. Maybe they kept getting stuck in long animation cycles before being able to respond.
One thing I don't see mention of when people review this game is the lack of ability to steer your army, like you could in Pikmin 1 and 2 with the c-stick. Did I just miss this?
Difficulty: For the record, I like my games to be difficult, but I appreciate that Nintendo is ultimately a company that wants to make its games accessible to as wide of an audience as possible. This is especially true of the Pikmin franchise, where the main complaint revolves around difficulty (which I find dumb, but so be it). So I don't take issue with games being easy, so long as they are also enjoyable. For the most part, Pikmin 3 is a pretty easy going title. You are never going to run out of fruit juice, and mass deaths of Pikmin never seem to happen unless you experience a huge blip in the controls.
There are a couple of instances though where the game tries so hard to be user friendly that you can only shake your head in disbelief, though. I'm talking about those little hint boxes that spew out such words of wisdom like "Blue Pikmin don't drown in water!" and "Rock Pikmin hurt when thrown!". It's really not needed because the game already does a fine job establishing these facts during its own progression (like the fact that you find blue Pikmin already in the water). And these hints are also given to you on each loading screen, on journal entries, during character dialogue... c'mon man. It doesn't interfere with the game but... c'mon man.
Puzzles: As you might have guessed, nothing in Pikmin 3 stretches the imagine too far, but there are some pretty neat obstacles that stand in your way. Flying Pikmin seem to get some of the more interesting puzzles, like lifting fences up from the ground and moving objects to form bridges. I kinda felt like the RBY core missed out on some puzzles, and seemed mostly reserved for breaking down walls guarded by their elemental type (underwater walls and electric fences). My main criticism is that there is a lot of building bridges with broken pottery and it felt like a third of my time playing levels revolved around this in one way or another, which is pretty ridiculous.
Length: I completed the main story in about 8 hours, but this wasn't a 100% run, and I was also taking turns with my brother so probably would have got that done a bit quicker had I been on my own (it's just easier to focus when I play solo). To be honest I had no desire to 100% it because the collectibles, fruit, are pretty boring. Unlike in Pikmin 2, there are no underground caves that greatly expand the length of the game with their sheer volume of collectibles and difficulty. Pikmin 3 feels more like Pikmin 1: A short game, but it's designed to be replayed, with the sub-goal of setting high scores and being as efficient as possible. That's fine by me as I'm a fan of short-n-sweet games, especially as there's the mission mode to keep you busy.
Summary: It's a good game, but there are lots of little things holding it back from being a great game. And I hope I'm not being a typical whiny gamer who finds a flaw in everything put in front of him.
